Teenage Kicks
Some teenagers act as if they've come from hell. Angel's son Connor actually
has. Jean Cummings meets Vincent Kartheiser.
Teenagers. They're never easy to deal with, but the relationship between
Connor and his father Angel is unusually tense. After all, the youth did
lock the vampire into a sealed coffin and dump him at the bottom of the
Pacific, so it could be some time before either side's willing to let
bygones be bygones. "What makes it particularly exciting is that we don't
know what's coming in the future," comments Vincent Kartheiser, the
23-year-old actor who plays the troubled teen. "And that's like real life.
We never know what's happening either. And as people, in this real world,
we're always changing."
Born in Minnesota, Kartheiser began his career in children's productions. "I
did years and years of Children's Theater, national tours, and worked at
some renowned theaters like the Guthrie in Minneapolis," he explains. "But
once I started dedicating myself to films and television when I was around
14, it became hard because a stage production takes months out of your
life."
He pauses before adding, "I would like to go back to that some time, but
this ball is rolling and you've kind of got to keep pushing."
'Pushing' his career led to film work including Another Day in Paradise,
with Melanie Griffith, James Woods, and Natasha Gregson Wagner, but as he
entered his twenties he turned his attention to the world of television.
"I decided I wanted something a bit more regular," Kartheiser comments in a
matter of fact tone. "The film world is beautiful and it's great, but it's a
little unpredictable. I wanted something a little more settled. I wanted to
do something that wasn't showing up every day to the same set, doing the
same thing on a half-hour sitcom, or even one of those kind of hip
situational comedies, which I find boring."
As a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the actor would have liked a role on
that show, but there were no vacancies in its regular cast. Instead, he set
his sights on a meaty role in Angel.
"I came in and auditioned and right away everyone kind of had a good feeling
about me joining the cast," he says. "It seemed that I just fit right in.
David and Amy, August, everyone really welcomed me and kind of got me right
into the swing of things, so I felt at home right away. I was a little bit
nervous, though, because they're very secretive with the plotlines on this
show. So when I auditioned, I simply auditioned for what was called, 'Street
Kid.' They didn't even tell me what my role was going to be, what I was
going to be doing," he adds. "So then five days before I show up they call
me and they said, 'Okay, here's your character. You're a demon-killing
character from another dimension.'"
"So," he says with a laugh, "I was like, 'How do I study for a demon
killer?'" The actor admits he had no prior interest in vampires. "Not
really," he comments. "I never really got into the books about vampires, and
I don't believe in them or anything but I enjoy doing what I'm doing for
sure."
Instead, Kartheiser focused on something he could understand: Connor's
anger, and his hatred for his father. "The man who raised Connor, Holtz, had
this deep hate for Angel, and took him off to this other dimension, a demon
dimension called Kortof. It's always dark, there are no humans and
everything eats and kills humans."
"so Connor spent a lot of time murdering and cutting off different fingers
and ears of demons and attaching them to necklaces. Quite a nice young man,"
he says with a chuckle.
"I guess you could use the analogy of like a child born with racist parents,
you know. It's hard to get out of that kind of box that they put you in. You
grow up with those same kinds of feelings. So I think all he knows about his
dad is what this kind of enemy to his father has told him."
"But I think it makes it interesting for my character because it's like when
you really don't like someone's work and then you met them and they're
really nice to you and they give you all these compliments. All of a sudden
you're like, 'Oh, gosh, now I'm stuck. Like I really hate them but at the
same time they're pretty nice!'"
"So I think he's stuck there thinking, 'God, all these things that Holtz has
told him and then Angel is actually quite kind and supportive of him.'
Here's the man who Holtz has told him killed his wife and daughter, so
Connor feels quite justified in doing whatever he likes to Angel . Angel has
murdered hundreds of people. So Connor doesn't care if Angel has a soul, he
doesn't care if he's sorry for it, he just feels he deserves to be punished.
And yet, Connor's discovered Angel to be someone different than he thought
he was."
"It's challenging as an actor to play roles that are completely off center,"
he continues. "It's not like you're playing where you're in a show that has
you in the office this week, and you have a crush on this girl and here are
your lines. There's so much more to it, and it's challenging, having to wrap
your mind around living in another dimension and killing demons. You're not
always successful but that's why you have good people around you to say,
'No, go do it again!'"
So having got himself in Connor's mindset, does he find it difficult to
leave the character at the studio? "That's one part of being an actor that
you must master to have a life," he says seriously. "You must be able to
leave it behind. Whether it's a role, whether it's an audition no matter
what it is, you have to be able to walk off the set and leave it behind
you."
"Sometimes you need to take a few moments in your trailer, your dressing
room," he explains, "just to remove yourself mentally from the work you've
done. Sometimes you need to go home."
"But if you have outlets, if you read a book, if you have someone to talk
to, it all helps," he says. "Basically, what I do, I go home and I turn on
Sports Center for an hour and by the time it's over with I'm back in the
real world."
That real world includes his girlfriend Ashalata Rawat, an aspiring actress,
someone he describes as "my love interest, a beautiful, talented, very smart
woman who is the love of my life. I love her madly."
"And she puts up with me, which is amazing to find any woman who can put up
with me for more than a few moments," he says with a laugh.
What is also part of his life aside from Angel are three films he's
completed, although he'll only reveal details of two of them. "I have a film
called The Unsaid with Andy Garcia and Terri Polo," he explains. "It's kind
of a psychological thriller which we actually made a couple of years ago so
I don't know what's going to happen with it."
"And I have a film which I just completed with Arliss Howard, a very good,
great actor and Mare Winningham, also very talented, called Into the Sun
[Note: Now known as Dandelion]. Hopefully that will be coming out next
summer."
Xpose Magazine - Jan. '03
Courtesy of Jean and Nina